Confidence

3 Strategies for Inoculating Girls Against Stress

It is generally well accepted that females experience greater levels of depression and anxiety than males. This is true, not only during adulthood, but also during adolescence.

While there is a range of suggestions as to why – including the idea that ‘men are tough and don’t talk to doctors or psychologists’, recent research offers an important new insight for parents and those who work with adolescents to consider:

Girls experience greater levels of exposure to stressors and more challenging interpersonal events compared with boys.

Researchers at Temple University conducted a longitudinal study with data collected at three time points, each 7 months apart. Close to 400 adolescents responded to the study, provided data across the 14 month period, and the research indicated the following:

Teens who experienced higher amounts of stress in their relationships (termed interpersonal dependent stress) were more likely to ruminate at follow up data collection time points.

Teens who experienced higher amounts of stress in their relationships were also significantly more likely to exhibit a negative cognitive style – meaning they interpreted life events in negative ways.

Those who exhibit these outcomes (rumination and negative cognitive style) place themselves at greater risk of depression than those who do not.

There may be nothing more critical to staving off the depression plague and building resilience than strong relationships between parent and child. Children whose parents show they care, who listen, and who validate them will typically enjoy fewer depressive symptoms when compared with children who do not enjoy strong, positive relationships with parents. This may be particularly true for girls who have strong relationships with their fathers.

Help them to grow up grateful
Having a powerful sense of gratitude is a powerful protective factor for reducing depression risk among teens. Several studies have demonstrated that not only are happy people grateful, but grateful people are happy – which means less depression. In a future blog post I’ll write about strategies for growing gratitude in our adolescents.

Optimism

Australian research with over 5000 Aussie kids clearly links optimism with the capacity to overcome depression faced by teens – and particularly girls. It appears that having a belief that things can and will get better, and that there are great things coming in the future, can reduce the risk of depression and boost our adolescent’s capacity to bounce back from stress and setback. (Surprisingly, optimism doesn’t protect against stressful life events – they still hurt – but it does protect against depression.) I blogged about encouraging optimism in our children via the Generation Next blog here.
Our teens are vulnerable. They are facing unprecedented scrutiny from peers, parents, and teachers. The digital world creates more opportunities for relationship challenges than ever before. Girls, in particular, are vulnerable to negative cognitions and rumination in connection with these challenges. These strategies can help us provide support and scaffolding as we attempt to inoculate them against mental illness.

The author of the million-selling Raising Boys is now fighting for the mental health of our daughters.

Clear, hard hitting, but with plenty of answers, this book helps parents understand how we can win back girlhood – happy, wild and free. It’s the core of individuality and self-belief – and is the new feminism that we want for our daughters.